Nightmare In Burgess
by RoseWillow13
Summary: In the otherwise peaceful town of Burgess, Pennsylvania, a psychotic serial killer terrorizes children and parents alike. Rated M for blood, gore, and psychological and physical torture.
1. Chapter 1

**/AN: This story is based off an rp on tumblr between me and the lovely _guardian-of-the-written-word_. ****She gave me permission to rewrite it in my own words./ **

He paused outside his bedroom, his hand stopping halfway as he reached for his doorknob. There was an odd scent in the air, metallic and almost sickening...but he couldn't quite place it right away. He blinked and furrowed his brow, then brought his hand up to his nose to double-check for a nosebleed.  
No, no...his hand came back dry. Maybe he had one coming on? But it wasn't that time of year...and that was definitely blood he smelled in the air.  
No...no, it couldn't have been...that was silly. He couldn't see any blood anywhere, and it would have to be a lot for it to be this strong from such a distance.  
Jamie shook his head. Maybe he was just imagining things. Or maybe he was getting sick and his senses were going haywire. Whatever.

But when he opened his bedroom door, his eyes went wide. His whole body went stiff when the scent of blood, stronger now, hit him like a wave and he beheld the sight of his best friend, Jack, sitting on his bedroom floor.

Jack was hugging his knees to his chest, and appeared to be sitting on a towel - that threw Jamie off a little bit, the towel did, because how would Jack have enough presence of mind to pull this morning's towel out of his hamper and sit down on it? But the question was discarded from his mind when he fully focused on Jack's shivering frame.  
The white-haired teen was covered from head to toe in blood. His pants and shirt were clinging to him, stuck to his skin. Even his hair was weighed down, plastered flat against his head instead of sticking up like it usually did - there was so much, it almost looked dyed red. And it was all still wet, dripping down his face and neck, and pooling on the towel Jack was sitting on.

A quick look around his room once he managed to tear his eyes away from the terrifying sight confirmed that Jack, for whatever reason, had climbed in through his bedroom window. There was a large smearing of blood on the windowsill and the glass, and bloody footprints on the wood lead to where he was sitting now, right next to his laundry hamper.

"J-Jack... Wh-... What happened..." he whispered.  
His stomach was twisting and churning at the sight, so his voice came out hoarse and weak, and the twitching inside only got worse when Jack didn't respond to his question at all. Whatever sense or grasp he'd had on his mind that caused him to put a towel down before curling up in the middle of his bedroom floor appeared to have abandoned him, since Jack was just staring blankly ahead of him as far as Jamie could tell through the blood smeared on his best friend's glasses. He didn't even move his head, or show any signs of having noticed Jamie was in the room at all.

Jamie found himself peeking over his shoulder, making sure his mother wouldn't come in and disturb them before he stepped inside and pushed the door shut. Jack was his best friend and Jamie loved him, and he knew he would protect Jack with his life...even if the older teen had done something awful that caused him to show up like this.

Jamie felt sick when he realized he _hoped_ that was the case, because the alternative meant...

He inched forward slowly, trying to avoid startling Jack, trying to ignore how his stomach twitched, wanting to clear itself at the sight and heavy metallic smell of all that blood. "Jack...? T-talk to me...please..." he whispered, pausing again once he got close to where he sat. But Jack's trembling had gotten worse the closer he got, and it made Jamie's heart clench. Was Jack afraid of him? He should know he would never hurt him...  
Slowly, he crouched down next to him, tilting his head slightly to catch his gaze.

As soon as Jamie crouched, Jack responded. His previous blank expression quickly morphed to one of wide-eyed panic, and he scooted back the few feet from his current spot right into the wall, wincing when his back made contact. The towel didn't seem to do any good at that point, having been abandoned when Jack frantically kicked his feet to propel himself back, causing a trail of blood to follow Jack all the way to the wall. He straightened, pressing back into it now, almost like he wanted to fuse with the paint. The sudden change in position caused his glasses to slip down his nose and onto his lap, revealing Jack's eyes properly. They darted about, pupils dilated with fear and disorientation - like he didn't know where he was.

Up close, Jamie could make out a few more details that he'd missed upon his initial inspection - the streakiness on his cheeks indicated Jack had been crying, which only confirmed that whatever had happened, Jack was either traumatized by or remorseful about it and it chilled Jamie to the core.  
When Jack's gaze ghosted over him, blue eyes seeming to stare through him instead of at him as they passed, Jamie winced and looked over Jack again.  
Jack was in his pajamas. One of his shirt sleeves was torn clean off at the elbow, the other pushed up haphazardly. Through the partially dried blood caked over him, Jamie could make out raw, angry red marks circling his wrists. The only other wounds on him as far as Jamie could see were some scrapes through the tears in his pants and small cuts spattered around his ankles, and a series of gashes on his arm that Jamie couldn't get a good look at because of Jack's fidgeting. "Jack... Look at me, please... T-talk to me..."

When Jack's eyes finally settled on his own, Jamie's breath hitched. He looked so...broken. So much so that for a brief moment, Jamie wondered if Jack had done this to himself...but no...there was too much blood, far too much damage that demanded a second party at the very least.  
It took all of his self control to keep calm for Jack at this point.  
"I...g-god... Jack... Jack, are you...are you alright?"

Jack shook his head frantically, squeezing his eyes shut. His breathing was rapid, and his whole body was trembling violently even though he was starting to register that he was with Jamie, in his room.  
That didn't mean anything. It couldn't ease his mind or make him feel safe... After all, Jack had been in his own bedroom when...no. No. It was too horrible.

One hand gripped at the bared and wounded arm, pressing over the cuts there. He grimaced, almost hissing in pain, but otherwise didn't seem to notice what he was doing. Instead, his other hand fisted into his own hair and he tugged at it roughly, tears starting to fall down his cheeks again.

Up until this point, Jack hadn't made a sound. His breaths and gasps had come out silent, and even during his venture in through the window Jack had been quiet as a ghost. But now...now he just couldn't hold it in. He whimpered and gasped as quiet, choked little cries slipped past his lips. He struggled to breathe, his sobs closing his airway and wracking his body. Jack gripped his hair tighter in a vain attempt to ground himself.

He didn't see Jamie reach over to his bed for a blanket. He didn't sense Jamie approaching him. But he did hear, even if only barely, Jamie's gentle coos. "Jack... Jack, breathe. Breathe with me. I'm right here... I'm here for you."  
When he felt the blanket being gently wrapped over his shoulders, he released his hair and pulled his injured arm to his chest, grabbing the blanket with his other hand. Most of it had begun to soak in blood the moment it was laid over him, but Jack found an unsoiled corner and shoved it against his nose, trying to overpower the smell of the blood with Jamie's scent instead, though it did very little to calm him down after what had happened.

Jamie's eyes widened at his reaction, and he frowned in concern. Every part of him wanted to panic - seeing Jack, normally so cool and collected, breaking down - but he had to be the strong one here. So he reached forward, gently placing a hand on Jack's back, forcing down a grimace and a gag when he felt the blood staining his hand.  
He glanced down at where his arm was tucked against his chest. Jack was being very protective of that injured arm... "Jack... Can I see?"  
When Jack just whimpered and shook his head almost violently, making Jamie worry he was going to break his own neck with the force of it, Jamie had no choice. Jack wasn't going to listen. He wasn't going to respond, and he had to do _something_, so without thinking, he reached forward and grabbed the hand tucked into his friend's chest.

He pulled it out, turning it over, and inspected the wounds there. And what he saw made his blood run cold.

He'd heard the rumors. He'd read the articles, watched the news stories...but seeing what had been etched into Jack's arm, blood oozing from the cuts, was a whole new level of terrifying for Jamie.

Because what had been carved into Jack's arm was a name. The name given to the most notorious, terrifying serial killer in all of Burgess.

'_The Nightmare King_'.


	2. Chapter 2

Jamie wanted to hurl.

"Oh, J-Jack..." he breathed, unable to move, even as Jack yanked his arm back to him with a small cry of distress.

The white-haired teen just kept shaking his head, whimpering. "No...no no...no no no no no...no..." It was like he was trying to urge reality away, to force it to change in his mind, and Jamie could understand why.

Not a whole lot was released in the media about the Nightmare King. The most anyone knew was that he killed kids who were about his and Jack's ages, but not much else. The Burgess Police Department was very careful to keep news of the killer under wraps.  
This alone worried the public especially - it was a well known fact that the media would often bribe officers working the big cases for more information. The fact that the Nightmare King case was kept so secret meant that whatever was happening was far too dangerous, far too horrific for anyone in the police department to be swayed enough to spill.

As Jack continued to whimper "no" over and over, curling in on himself so far that his forehead touched the floor -_he couldn't breathe and his ears were ringing and oh god it sounded like their screams-_, Jamie frowned deeply. Whatever the Nightmare King did to his victims before he killed them was apparently what happened to Jack.  
This couldn't be happening, he thought. It just couldn't! Not to Jack...not _his_ Jack! This was too much! Jack was so good and kind, it wasn't fair! It just couldn't be real.  
But one look at Jack made him wilt. He took in a shaky breath. No...unfortunately, this was reality.  
"J-Jack... Jack, c-c'mon..." he whispered, his voice trembling slightly. He took Jack's upper arms gently, minding the wounds near his wrist, trying to lift the tiny male into his own.

Jack, after going through what he'd gone through, tried to yank away by reflex, but could only squirm weakly as Jamie picked him up. Without a lot of resistance, it was easy for Jamie to pull Jack's small frame into his lap.  
Not caring anymore if the blood got onto him or anything else, he kept Jack in his arms, close and tight, rocking him gently. He needed to hold him right now, to calm him down.

Even in Jamie's arms, in the comfort they were trying to provide him, Jack squirmed weakly. His breathing picked up for a moment; he was close to hyperventilating. "Don't...don't...don't...no no no...no..." he whispered.  
Despite Jamie's coos of "Oh, Jack... Shh, just breathe. Breathe with me, in and out. In and out, you're going to be okay...", Jack just kept shaking his head. But his sobs did die down, at least, to quiet whimpers and tiny hiccups.  
But how could he breathe? Jamie wanted him to _breathe_ after he'd seen them slaughtered, saw their faces and smelled their blood and watched them die? How could he breathe knowing he was covered in their blood now? Oh, the smell...the smell was getting to him and he fought back the wave of nausea that hit him.

But Jamie kept on, rocking him and stroking his back and cooing soft, gentle words to try to get him to calm down, and it seemed to be working. Jack found his hiccups easing further, and his chest unwound a bit, much to his relief. He could breathe...he could breathe...  
Jack repeated that over and over in his mind. He could breathe. He could breathe. He didn't dare tell himself that he was safe, because he knew he wasn't, but he could breathe. He could breathe. Breathe. Breathe.

Jamie couldn't do anything, he couldn't even begin to think of doing anything, until Jack's breathing was finally slowing down again. So all he could do was continue to rock him until the older teen stopped forcing his breaths and could breathe deeply without over-thinking it.

"I... I-I'm gonna call the cops," he whispered, a small tremble running through his frame. Saying it out loud made it more real, somehow, and more than anything he wished he could make this go away. "Th-they'll know what to do, right? Th-they can help..."

At first, Jack just whimpered miserably and nodded. He needed to tell the police where the...where the warehouse was...oh god the bodies...  
"I-I n-need a sh-shower..." he finally managed to say. "P-please..."

Jamie was eager to please, really - he wanted nothing more than to make Jack comfortable right now. He wanted so badly to say yes, but...  
He probably shouldn't be following shows like CSI by the script, but he still figured that at least cleaning Jack up would be considered tampering with evidence. He sighed heavily.  
"I... I'm sorry, Jack," he whispered, shaking his head. "They...they'll need to..." He took a deep breath. "They need to see _this_." Jamie gestured to Jack's form.  
To Jamie's horror, his words made Jack burst into another fit of tears and curl up tighter. But all Jamie could do was hold him close with one arm, and he fished out his phone with the other, clumsily calling the police.

"_911, what's your emergency?_"

"M-my friend, I think he... I think he was attacked by the Nightmare King... He's at my house right now, and I..."

"_The Nightmare King is at your house?_"

"N-no...my friend, the one he attacked!"

"_Sir, are you certain it was the Nightmare King?_"

It sounded like they didn't believe him. Then again, who would? What he was saying surely sounded crazy and a little paranoid.

"M-my friend, he... H-he showed up at my house covered in blood, a-and 'The Nightmare King' is..." His voice dropped to a whisper, as though he could protect Jack from hearing the explanation. "...Cut into his arm. Please, please, help..."

Jack let out another quiet whimper as Jamie explained, and the sound combined with his detailed claim seemed to confirm it for the operator.

"_...Okay, sir. I need your location. We'll have the police at your house in a few minutes._"

The fact that she believed him only after hearing _that _disturbed him. So this was a normal thing for his victims?

Once he'd given her his address, he was asked to stay on the line, just in case. He didn't hang up, but he did put the phone down so he could hold Jack close again, rubbing gentle circles into his back. "They're coming, Jack. It's okay, you'll be okay...they're coming. The police are on their way."


	3. Chapter 3

It only took a few minutes for the police to get to the Bennett household, but to Jack, who just wanted this to be erased, and Jamie, who was still trying to hold and comfort Jack, it felt like an eternity.

When the police finally arrived, the boys heard Mrs. Bennett answer the door. And it didn't sound like she was going to let them in - she kept on saying they must have had the wrong house, her tone confused and a little worried. Of course she would be...she didn't know Jack was here or what had happened to him.  
"Mom!" Jamie called in a rather broken sounding voice, rubbing Jack's back as he felt the white haired boy's heart begin to speed up again. He murmured a quiet apology for yelling in his ear before speaking up again. "I-it's alright! S-send them up here!"

Silence followed, which lasted only a very short moment before footsteps of several people could be heard coming up the stairs. The bedroom door swung open and there stood Mrs. Bennett, eyes gone wide, gasping in horror. "O-oh my-...!" she began, before keeling over in a faint.  
One officer took care of her, helping her to settle in the hallway and attempting to wake her up gently, while the other officers came in to start questioning the two boys. At first they asked Jamie, who seemed much more coherent and capable of answering, what happened.

"I..."  
Jamie bit his lip, looking up at the officers and then down at Jack, who was shrinking back into him due to the crowd in Jamie's little bedroom. Poor Jack had never been good in crowds, and in this state...  
"I don't know...it's..." He looked back up again, obviously confused and scared over this whole thing. "I just found him this way..." he whispered.

Realizing they weren't going to get any answers right away, a CSI got to work taking pictures of the two boys. A paramedic grabbed Jack's arm, pulling it out so the CSI could take some quick pictures of the carving there. Jack let out a little cry of distress, which only caused Jamie to hold him more securely.  
Once the CSI was satisfied and was taking rushed but careful pictures of both boys' bodies, the paramedic got to work cleaning the wound to prevent any more cross blood contamination.  
A wave from the CSI with the camera, and the paramedics pulled Jack from Jamie's arms, one frantically working on field-wrapping his cuts while another took pictures of him, full body. Jack had already started crying again the moment he was ripped from Jamie's safe embrace, but he managed to hold still enough (if you didn't count the shaking from sobbing, of course), understanding on some level how important these pictures were.  
Finally, once the investigator with the camera moved on to take pictures of the window and floor where Jack had come in and trekked across, an officer approached the small shaking teen. He waved the other officers back a few steps and crouched in front of where the white haired boy was sitting. "It's okay, son. You're safe now, okay? I'm Police Chief Pitchiner... Can you tell me your name?"

Jack shuddered and whimpered a little. For some reason, despite his calm tone and soothing words, Chief Pitchiner's voice filled him with anxiety and dread. "J-J-Jackson O-Overland..." he mumbled quietly, his gaze never lifting from the floor.

"Alright, Jackson. Please try to calm down a little. We won't let anything else happen to you, okay? You're safe now." Pitchiner offered a small smile to Jack, who still wasn't looking up. "Can you tell me what happened?"

"Can we clean him up first?" Jamie suddenly asked. His voice was shaky, and he was honestly a bit surprised by it. "D-don't you think he's been covered in...in this stuff long enough?"  
He hated seeing Jack so upset. All he wanted was to grab the older boy and hold him close - to make everything go away, make him happy again...but with the police and paramedics swarming around them, it wasn't possible.  
Jack had been dragged from his arms, taken pictures of while _crying his goddamn eyes out_, and while Jamie understood that they needed to process this for their records, for evidence, he couldn't help but be angry that they weren't helping Jack, weren't holding him, comforting him. He needed help.

Pitchiner looked at Jamie, startled, then at Jack with what looked like concern. "Ah, yes, of course, my apologies...but please, Jackson, can you at least tell us where you were taken?" Now Pitchiner sounded rather rushed. "Maybe if we get there in time, we can save-"

"Th-they didn't..." Jack cut Pitchiner off with a hoarse whisper and a shake of his head. "They didn't...they're all...I-I was the only..." he trailed off with another cry, wrapping his arms around himself and starting to sob again.

"A-ah!" Pitchiner held out his hands (though he didn't touch Jack), hoping to shush the boy. "Jackson, Jackson, shh... I'm sorry...but we still need to process the crime scene, and hopefully catch this man... He could still be in the area."

Jack, after a long moment, swallowed and nodded.  
He remembered being taken out of his home and shoved into a van with a bunch of other kids by the masked man... He'd allowed them all to see where they were being taken, too. Probably...god, probably just so he would tell the police where to go to find the bodies.  
Shakily, he told the police what building he remembered - it was a warehouse by the river, secluded in the trees, and they'd all been taken inside...strung together by the wrists with rope like prisoners.

By the time he was finished describing the building (he had to keep pausing as sobs rose in his throat), Mrs. Bennett was finally coming to, and Jamie was just sitting there, trying to absorb this all. It was real... This was all real... Jamie couldn't fathom why this had to happen...to Jack, of all people!  
Immediately, Pitchiner started sending orders through his walkie to secure the area and start a search. As he did so, Jamie faintly heard his mother asking what she should do, what was going on, if the two of them would be alright. She was quickly calmed down, and Pitchiner answered the questions for all three of them. "We'll need to take you both to the hospital - you're covered in evidence, I'm afraid, and we'll need to process your clothing and clean you both off in a sterile environment."

The paramedics began urging Jack and Jamie to the bedroom door, and then down the stairs. Jamie, feeling rather numb about the whole thing by this point, heard one of them tell his mother to meet them at the hospital, and that was that. They were pushed into the ambulance, Jack clinging to Jamie up right up until he was laid back in a gurney. Even then, he held Jamie's hand tightly. Jamie easily obliged him, holding his hand in both of his as he was sat down nearby, and they made their way to the hospital.


	4. Chapter 4

The whole ride to the hospital, Jack was trying to think of anything but what had happened to him.  
He was relieved that Chief Pitchiner hadn't pushed past the building back at the house, but he knew it wouldn't last. He figured they'd have to ask him what happened eventually for their report.  
But... Jack didn't think he could handle describing what he'd been forced to see or endure. He didn't want to relive watching the others die. He didn't want to remember how it felt being tied up at the wrists, gagged, blindfolded, and dumped out in the woods to hold his own in his vulnerable state.

He wanted to forget any of this ever happened.

Jamie's hands tightly around his the entire ride to the hospital kept him calm enough, but once they reached the hospital and the boys were separated - Jack taken in by the gurney and Jamie forced in the mandatory wheelchair - Jack had to be sedated because he was nearly in hysterics.  
And after the hospital staff got Jack and Jamie all cleaned up and put them in hospital gowns and clean underwear, Jack was taken into a room while his arm was more properly treated and Jamie was allowed to sit in (if only because Jack was still crying and moving about even through the sedative in his system, and Jamie being nearby seemed to be the only way to get him to hold still).

When Jack was coherent again two hours later, it was nearly five in the morning and the police had come back to finish questioning. The first thing they asked for was his address. When Jack asked why, they told him it would have to be processed as a crime scene like Jamie's was. He gave it to them, and a few officers were called to go to the house. Between being sleepy and slightly drugged and being questioned, Jack's hazy mind didn't have a lot of presence to question anything anymore.

That didn't mean he didn't have enough presence of mind to nearly start crying again when he was asked to go into detail about what happened after he and the others were taken to the warehouse.

A moment passed as Jack forced himself to keep coherent, and finally he looked down at his bandaged arm with a frown.  
"Jamie," he whimpered. He didn't want the younger boy to have to hear this...he'd gone through enough horror just handling Jack in the aftermath. "Leave."

Jamie, who had stuck diligently to Jack's side the entire time he was allowed, blinked at him. Throughout the whirlwind of events happening, he'd felt really...numb. It was all so surreal, and he expected any moment to be woken up and find himself in his bedroom, in his bed. On some level, though, he_ knew_ it was real, and he knew he had to insist on staying by Jack's side.  
Even his mother was only allowed a brief hello before she was sent off again to sit and wait - Jamie being the only exception to the hospital's "no non-family visitors" rule for obvious reasons. Until Jack was coherent enough to give his consent, Mrs. Bennett would have to sit outside and wait.  
It had been a long night, and now the police were back and Jack was kicking him out.

But he knew he needed to stay near Jack, for his best friend's sake.

"N-no, Jack... I want to be here for you! Let me do that, at least. Please, s-since..." Jamie trailed off for just a moment. "Since there's nothing else I can do for you."

Jack stared at Jamie for another long moment, his lower lip trembling before he pursed them and looked down at his lap, body starting to tremble.  
A nurse was fixing to sedate him yet again, but he looked up at her and quickly shook his head. The cop held up his hand as well - Jack couldn't give him the report if he was more drugged than he already was.  
Jack attempted weakly to shove at Jamie to get him out of the room, but the brunet didn't budge, and finally Jack just turned to face the officer again.

"He... He w-w-was wearing a m-mask...I-I couldn't s-see his face. B-but he... He..." Jack whimpered and used the arm not hooked up to an IV to cling to Jamie for support. "He had us...tied...and...and... He...he gr-grabbed m-me...m-my h-hair...a-and...and..."

When Jack trailed off and shook his head, choking back a sob, the officer reached a reassuring hand over, putting it on Jack's. "If it's too hard for you right now, Jackson-"

But Jack shook his head again. "I-I..."  
No matter how long he waited, he would never really get over the horrors. He already knew that. It would only get worse if he held it in and refused to let anyone help him, so he may as well tell the story now instead of having to re-live it all later.  
So Jack took a deep breath and tried to put on a brave face, telling them how the Nightmare King had dragged him to each other bound teen by the hair and killed them all one by one...mercilessly. brutally. And while Jack did try to skim over it at first, the cop urged him to go into detail, hoping to compare his story to the evidence in the warehouse to make sense of the attack. The description certainly explained why Jack was so soaked in blood that it hadn't even dried nearly halfway by the time he'd reached Jamie's house, even after about two hours of stumbling around in the woods.  
He told them about that, too. After the slaughter, Jack's sleeve had been ripped off at the elbow and his wrists untied for only a minute so the killer could cut his name into Jack's arm, starting at the wrist.  
One look at the nurse's face told them it was a miracle that Jack hadn't ended up with a horrible infection caused by cross-blood-contamination.  
Once Jack was marked, the Nightmare King bound his wrists once again tightly with rope behind his back. His glasses were removed and a blindfold was tied tightly around his head. Then he was gagged, a cloth stuffed into his mouth, making him retch, before a separate cloth was wedged between his teeth and tied around behind his head as well.  
Everything had gone by quickly after that for Jack. He was dragged along by the uninjured arm from the building and into the forest, the rough ground scraping at the bottom of his bare feet, before he was thrown rather harshly into a tree. He told them of how he lay there, sobbing, for a long time before he finally pulled himself up and started stumbling through the forest, hoping to God that he would be seen and helped.  
Instead, he'd tripped over a barbed wire fence. Luckily for Jack, the collision had only caused a few minor cuts on his legs and feet, and he'd just bruised his head a bit when he hit the ground as opposed to knocking himself out completely. In a moment of collected clarity, one of the few he had during this whole ordeal, he'd managed to shuffle back until his wrists had meet the barbs and he'd sawed the ropes off of his arms. When he'd gotten rid of his blindfold and gag, he found his glasses strewn on the ground before him and no one in sight.  
From there, he'd stumbled around - judging by the vague time frames Jack had been able to give, it was another hour - and everything was kind of a blur.

"Th-the next th-th-thing I-I knew, I-I w-w-was i-in J-J-Jamie's r-r-room..." he finished off, and when he started sobbing again, the nurse sent the cop a questioning glance, tears in her own eyes after having heard Jack's story.  
Receiving a nod from the officer, who was also looking rather sick, she quickly hooked Jack up to another dose of the sedative.

Jack was grateful to have the medication surging through him. His body went numb and limp under it's influence, his mind slowed, and his anxiety dropped. Still, though, he sniffled miserably, settling back into the hospital bed and closing his eyes and letting himself be pulled under by the drugs.

Jamie felt sick by the time Jack had passed out, though he still made a point to run his fingers through his best friend's hair and wipe away the tears that fell as he slept - he figured Jack was having nightmares, but he would at least get some rest thanks to the sedative.  
He was glad for that...it wouldn't do to have Jack see him now - he was nearly as pale as Jack himself, he was sure. The story Jack told...it was disgusting! Who would do that to someone? Who would do that to his Jack?

The officers questioned Jamie to make sure he had an alibi, thanked him for not cleaning him up and destroying the evidence they needed...and finally left the two boys alone.  
When everyone was gone, Jamie was left curled up in the chair next to Jack's bed, staring forward into space.


End file.
